Spiritualism today ....

I’m sitting in a circle with Ashley and three other young women: Ivymay, 26, who works at a local museum, Nichola, 29, a civil servant, and Charlie, 34, a learning and development worker.

You might know what’s going on here as a seance. It’s exactly as you’d imagine, except there are no candles. Instead, battery-powered LED flames flicker around us. “It’s a health and safety thing,” Ashley says. “Burning candles would have pushed our insurance up too much.”

mac wrote:Oh dear - what a mish-mash of badly-reported ideas. 

mac wrote:

I can't place this Chris French fella although somewhere in the empty recesses of my mind something seems familiar.

Candlelight.kk wrote:

mac wrote:

I can't place this Chris French fella although somewhere in the empty recesses of my mind something seems familiar.

From post no. 49 here   [Only admins are allowed to see this link]

mac wrote:So that's Frenchie.....  Interesting interview but French was guessing (possibly using a little psychic ability) and Smith appeared to me to mostly be carrying out psychic reading. 

Was any mediumship evident - was it even supposed to be?

Professor Chris French is the Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a Patron of the British Humanist Association. He has published over 150 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims. His most recent book is Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience.

Candlelight.kk wrote:

mac wrote:So that's Frenchie.....  Interesting interview but French was guessing (possibly using a little psychic ability) and Smith appeared to me to mostly be carrying out psychic reading. 

Was any mediumship evident - was it even supposed to be?

" ...French was guessing (possibly using a little psychic ability) "  Chris French - psychic ability??    

Professor Chris French is the Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a Patron of the British Humanist Association. He has published over 150 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims. His most recent book is Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience.

[Only admins are allowed to see this link]

The idea of the programme was (from French's point of view) to try to demonstrate that anyone (with or without psychic ability) can give a convincing reading using 'cold-reading' techniques (very general statements which can fit with most people, whatever their circumstances)... "Most people know someone called John", etc ... (techniques, for which it is a known fact, that a lot of people who make a very lucrative living within the psychic industry do use).
It didn't quite work out the way he had expected though, as the lady (Angela) who was recently grieving and who really needed some sort of acknowledgement and comfort in her grief got absolutely nothing from French's generic 'guessing', whereas with Gordon, she was comforted and convinced with specifics (one example: the sense of the man with smiling eyes who passed with a heart condition & hearing him singing the song 'Angie Baby' - which turns out was a song her dad (recently passed with a heart condition) used to sing to her all the time ...  

As far as mediumship was concerned, it would appear that the focus of the programme was on psychic reading - i.e. picking up on the energies surrounding the person.  It's a pity we couldn't actually see the full recordings of each of the readings, but of course it was a TV programme and apart from the time involved, there are certain restrictions that have to be adhered to.